Alexander Schweitzer: From election loser to federal minister

On the evening of March 22, 2026, Alexander Schweitzer's disappointment was clearly written on his face. With 25.9 percent, his SPD had lost almost ten percentage points compared to the previous election result and lost the state election - for the first time since 1987 the CDU was ahead of the SPD in Rhineland-Palatinate. In May, Gordon Schnieder was elected Prime Minister in the state parliament.

His predecessor Schweitzer became a coalition partner: together the two presented the coalition agreement of the new black-red coalition in April. Schweitzer spoke for much longer than Schnieder at the meeting; his SPD, in the coalition with the CDU, has just as many ministerial posts as the Christian Democrats - despite having a good five percentage points less in the election results. At the meeting in Mainz, Schweitzer assured: What is now important is a stable government. They don't want "Berlin conditions" in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Rumors about ambitions in federal politics

After the election defeat in Mainz, Schweitzer was elected chairman of the SPD parliamentary group. During the election campaign, he ruled out becoming a minister in a CDU-led state government. It didn't take long before he was said to have ambitions to move from Rhineland-Palatinate to federal politics.

Son of an inland boatman

Schweitzer, who grew up as the son of an inland boatman, joined the SPD at the age of 16 and in 2013, at the age of 39, became the youngest minister in Rhineland-Palatinate to date: He took over the department for labor, social affairs, transformation and digitalization. Almost two years later he became chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Mainz state parliament. In 2024, the long-time Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, made him her successor when she left politics for health reasons. But Schweitzer didn't even keep this position for two years - until he was voted out in March.

Enable the opportunity for advancement

In Rhineland-Palatinate state politics, his goal was to make the opportunity for social and economic advancement possible for everyone, says Schweitzer. "If someone says, I don't come from a privileged situation, but I want to achieve something, through education, through my own commitment, through performance - then people have to find these opportunities," he emphasized as Prime Minister.

Since he was the first in his family to graduate from high school, "issues of justice and access to opportunities in society have a very direct bearing on me."

Criticism of Chancellor Merz

Good prerequisites for a Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs. However, in the past, Schweitzer had repeatedly railed against those with whom he now has to work at the federal level.

After the AfD election victory in Saxony-Anhalt at the beginning of September, he accused Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) of offending many people during the reform debates with "some clumsy but not unintentional statements." And elsewhere he criticized in the media "that the way Friedrich Merz acts, the way he brings issues into the social debate, does not help this federal government."

Schweitzer also sees a need for discussion in the coalition debate about pension reform, because of which Labor Minister Bas, who has now resigned, was under considerable pressure. After the election disaster in Saxony-Anhalt, the deputy SPD federal chairman called for changes to the federal government's pension policy reform course. Proposals in which people would receive less of what they had earned "should not receive any support from the SPD," he said.

Schweitzer is in favor of maintaining the pension without deductions after 45 years of contributions - one of the major points of contention in the coalition when it comes to pension reform. It will now be his big task to implement this reform in Berlin.